for chemical experiment is a good thing, it is true, as far as it
goes; but I should prefer to the laboratory a naturalists' field-
club, such as are prospering now at several of the best public
schools, certain that the boys would get more of sound inductive
habits of mind, as well as more health, manliness, and cheerfulness,
amid scenes to remember which will be a joy for ever, than they ever
can by bending over retorts and crucibles, amid smells even to
remember which is a pain for ever.

But I would, whether a field-club existed or not, require of every
young man entering the army or navy--indeed of every young man
entering any liberal profession whatsoever--a fair knowledge, such
as would enable him to pass an examination, in what the Germans call
Erd-kunde--earth-lore--in that knowledge of the face of the earth
and of its products, for which we English have as yet cared so
little that we have actually no English name for it, save the clumsy
and questionable one of physical geography; and, I am sorry to say,
hardly any readable school books about it, save Keith Johnston's
"Physical Atlas"--an acquaintance with which last I should certainly
require of young men.

It does seem most strange--or rather will seem most strange a
hundred years hence--that we, the nation of colonists, the nation of
sailors, the nation of foreign commerce, the nation of foreign
military stations, the nation of travellers for travelling's sake,
the nation of which one man here and another there--as Schleiden
sets forth in his book, "The Plant," in a charming ideal
conversation at the Travellers' Club--has seen and enjoyed more of
the wonders and beauties of this planet than the men of any nation,
not even excepting the Germans--that this nation, I say, should as